The Politics Thread - please direct all related posts here..

[duetta]

My reality is that ever-escalating health care costs, driven by health care players who game the system while putting patients last, is wrecking the American economy. Again, the numbers are indisputable - 17% of GDP (and rising) versus 8-9% elsewhere in the advanced industrial world. If you want to fix the economy, health care is a fine place to begin. And according to the CBO, the Senate Bill would have significantly bent the cost curve in the proper direction.

Unfortunately, neither the House or Senate Bill went far enough - especially with the Republicans whining about some imagined government takeover of health care (and that crack head Palin fantasizing about death panels) instead of working with majority Democrats to create a model that might work. As Jim DeMint, that Confederate lowlife, made crystal clear, for Republicans like him, this is all about defeating Obama, and making health care his Waterloo. He imagines himself a smart political thinker - and I imagine him a traitor.

[HarthorneWingo]

My reality is that ever-escalating health care costs, driven by health care players who game the system while putting patients last, is wrecking the American economy. Again, the numbers are indisputable - 17% of GDP (and rising) versus 8-9% elsewhere in the advanced industrial world. If you want to fix the economy, health care is a fine place to begin. And according to the CBO, the Senate Bill would have significantly bent the cost curve in the proper direction.

Unfortunately, neither the House or Senate Bill went far enough - especially with the Republicans whining about some imagined government takeover of health care (and that crack head Palin fantasizing about death panels) instead of working with majority Democrats to create a model that might work. As Jim DeMint, that Confederate lowlife, made crystal clear, for Republicans like him, this is all about defeating Obama, and making health care his Waterloo. He imagines himself a smart political thinker - and I imagine him a traitor.

Right on, my brother.

[newguy]

My reality is that ever-escalating health care costs, driven by health care players who game the system while putting patients last, is wrecking the American economy. Again, the numbers are indisputable - 17% of GDP (and rising) versus 8-9% elsewhere in the advanced industrial world. If you want to fix the economy, health care is a fine place to begin. And according to the CBO, the Senate Bill would have significantly bent the cost curve in the proper direction.

Unfortunately, neither the House or Senate Bill went far enough - especially with the Republicans whining about some imagined government takeover of health care (and that crack head Palin fantasizing about death panels) instead of working with majority Democrats to create a model that might work. As Jim DeMint, that Confederate lowlife, made crystal clear, for Republicans like him, this is all about defeating Obama, and making health care his Waterloo. He imagines himself a smart political thinker - and I imagine him a traitor.

I also am concerned about our economy, and while I'd look at different numbers, I agree the numbers are indisputable. I don't believe the senate bill will bend the cost curve because 1) politicians spend and never cut, and 2) this bill includes entitlement EXPANSION.

We need reality, not narrative... we need to be treated as adults. Don't tell me Cash for Clunkers is good for our economy/environment and a grand success, then stop the program. Don't tell me you need trillions for healthcare to save us trillions in healthcare. When you debate, debate on the merit of the argument. Attack what your opponent is saying if he is wrong, not the opponent. Stop with the bogeyman and kill-the-messenger strategies. State the problem, state the plan, then test it on a small scale, then say "see, it worked... now we'll roll it out nationally."

[duetta]

I also am concerned about our economy, and while I'd look at different numbers, I agree the numbers are indisputable. I don't believe the senate bill will bend the cost curve because 1) politicians spend and never cut, and 2) this bill includes entitlement EXPANSION.

We need reality, not narrative... we need to be treated as adults. Don't tell me Cash for Clunkers is good for our economy/environment and a grand success, then stop the program. Don't tell me you need trillions for healthcare to save us trillions in healthcare. When you debate, debate on the merit of the argument. Attack what your opponent is saying if he is wrong, not the opponent. Stop with the bogeyman and kill-the-messenger strategies. State the problem, state the plan, then test it on a small scale, then say "see, it worked... now we'll roll it out nationally."

I don't disagree with your premises. I really don't. But we're dealing with apples and oranges here. For instance, the reason health care will cost more is to cover everyone; in my opinion, universality is not a magic bullet with regard to cost - and it might even raise costs by expanding demand (which is why I'd double the number of seats in Medical Schools tomorrow as part any health care deal, even if that means ticking off the AMA). But IMHO, the real problem lies in the way that both parties have been been inundated by corporate money - money that wants nothing to do with changing the status quo in any way that would significantly improve American competitiveness globally. And this problem only became worse with the Supreme Court decision this week.

If you want to bring sanity back to American politics, my answer would be to ban all money from the electoral system, and make every election publicly funded. The Framers actually believed that candidates shouldn't even actively campaign for office (Jefferson, for instance, claims that he didn't quietly campaign for President), and that only the cultivation of virtue could preserve their Republic; I have no clue how the Gang of Five on the Roberts Court interprets the Framers actual attitudes as an endorsement of even greater corporate / lobbyist interference in the electoral process (assuming that we need even take their view seriously, which is allegedly the 'originalist /strict construction' mantra).

[Mr. Natural]

To my second most recent post (response to Wingo), I only heard crickets (and that Wingo was going to take a sabbatical.)

Then, in response to the Massachusetts vote for Brown, Duetta cites the problem to be an uneducated electorate (despite that MA is the #1 educated state in the US... that the college educated split on Obama/McCain... and that it was the under-educated that voted for Obama 2 to 1) that is manipulated by right-wing media FOX, WSJ, and talk radio (despite the left having Academia, Hollywood, and broadcast media not named Fox on their side.)

The left has Hollywood huh? When was the last time you say a war movie where the American soldier wasn't protrayed as the victim? I cannot think of one Vietnam movie that protrayed the Vietnamese as the victims and the US as the brutal oppressors. Which would be more fitting with reality.

As for broadcast media, there certainly aren't left wing. Let me set this straight: having the same position as the Democratoc party doesn't mean your left-wing. It just means you share ideology with the left wing of the Business party. There is no actual left wing is the United States in media or politics.

[newguy]

the reason health care will cost more is to cover everyone; in my opinion, universality is not a magic bullet with regard to cost - and it might even raise costs by expanding demand

I haven't given any thought to campaign reform, but leveling the playing field by keeping out lobbyists (political machines, corporations, unions, etc.) certainly sounds appealing.

I still believe the current Senate bill won't bend Healthcare costs down a single dime, and likely will bend them up.

I think the biggest financial problem we face are entitlements. Retirement age was set at age 65 back when a male's life expectancy was 62. Our system was not designed to fund people for 15 years of unproductive life.

Retiring baby boomers will generate a capital crunch that will have to be dealt with by not allowing them to retire, cutting retirement benefits sharply, or both. (Russia has already made the retirement adjustment, moving its retirement age past the average age of male mortality.)

[alphad0gz]

I only wish that I could express my thoughts as well as you folks. I'm a regular guy (working class) and I come from a small city working class family. While I can't speak to the politics of our country at the level you do, I have very real concerns that are sometimes mirrored by the posters here. I can tell you that the majority of people I know are very concerned about the amount of intrusion into our lives and into our pockets. The word freedom doesn't ring as true as it it did 200 years ago and I feel as though we have lost our way.

I'm not any kind of fanatic, nor am I coloring myself as a liberal or a conservative. I don't want people to be hurt and I don't want them get what has not been earned. I think we all should have a right to a college level education without going into long term debt and I believe that everyone should have access to medical care. I consider myself to be an independent thinker and a Patriot. I wonder why common sense is, apparently, not so common.

Despite what has been posted, I can tell you for a fact that there is a very real re-proportioning of the class strata in this country since the late 60's. While at first blush, it may seem that the middle class is still strong, the truth is much more discouraging. After adjusting for inflation, buying power, and other factors, the reality is that the middle class has shrunk by nearly 50%. Although this is bad enough (the strength of the US has always been the size and vitality of the middle class), the darker side is that 80% of the losses have fallen below the poverty line while the remainder have moved into the wealthy class.

I no longer believe in politicians or the political system the participate in. It's always the same ****, different face, year after year. Meanwhile, they take more and more from me and give it to people and places that I have no real stake in. I grew up in a place where anyone would help anyone else without having to be asked. Being dishonest was one of the worst things a person could be. We believed charity began at home. Being a leech when you were able bodied was frowned on, not encouraged. What happened to my country?

[richardhutnik]

What kind of society do we have if it is entirely based upon either getting rich or being in poverty, with a small minority of folks in the middle? Can American survive one where it is equivalent to a giant poker hall, that you not only make it or not by being a good employee, working hard and doing what the boss says, but also guessing right with your training, and who you work for?

- Rich

[duetta]

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/no ... en,kbh,blk

[newguy]

What kind of society do we have if it is entirely based upon either getting rich or being in poverty, with a small minority of folks in the middle? Can American survive one where it is equivalent to a giant poker hall, that you not only make it or not by being a good employee, working hard and doing what the boss says, but also guessing right with your training, and who you work for?

- Rich

First, alpha, I think you express your thoughts just as well as any of us.

Both you and Rich bring up the "shrinking middle class" among other concerns. So did a friend of mine a few months back, so I went to the US Census Bureau site and compared income distribution between 1974 and 2008 in CPI adjusted dollars:

It's true that the middle class shrunk (those making $25K to $100K, from 52% to 42.3% of total population), and it's true that the "rich" ($150K and up) doubled in size (from 9.3% to 20.5%). Here's the part those "crisis" mongering politicians leave out... the lower class did not grow, in fact, decreased from 27.4% to 24.7%. The only strata of the lower class that grew were the under $5K per year group... from 2.2% to 3%. China has over 1 billion making less than $2K/yr.

Basically, no one's life got worse, and the reason the middle shrank is because they moved up the income scale.

I'm not cherry-picking. I can carve up these numbers any way you like and the story is the same.

[Mr. Natural]

The richest 1% of the US population have more financial wealth than the bottom 95% combined. This number is greater than the wealth disparity during the Great Depression and is starting to rival third world nations. In an above post, someone mentions that that shrinking middle class starting in the late 60s but I would have to dispute that. This latest incarnation of class warfare began in 1975. Prior to that, there was a protracted period when wealth inequality fell in this country, going back almost to 1929. So you have this fairly continuous downward trend from 1929, which of course was the peak of the stock market before it crashed, until just about the mid-1970s. Since then, things have really turned around, and the level of wealth inequality today is almost double what it was in the mid-1970s.

There is also another measure called the Gini coefficient. It measures the concentration of wealth at different percentile levels, and does an overall computation. It is an index that goes from zero to one, one being the most unequal. Wealth inequality in the United States has a Gini coefficient of .82, which is pretty close to the maximum level of inequality you can have.

[richardhutnik]

No one's life got worse? Are you aware of the unemployment rate for people currently, particularly in sectors like the IT sector?

By the way, I was writing about a situation that might happen. Your answer was that it won't happen? What happens if society does reach this? Is it a good or bad thing?

- Rich

[newguy]

The richest 1% of the US population have more financial wealth than the bottom 95% combined. This number is greater than the wealth disparity during the Great Depression and is starting to rival third world nations. In an above post, someone mentions that that shrinking middle class starting in the late 60s but I would have to dispute that. This latest incarnation of class warfare began in 1975. Prior to that, there was a protracted period when wealth inequality fell in this country, going back almost to 1929. So you have this fairly continuous downward trend from 1929, which of course was the peak of the stock market before it crashed, until just about the mid-1970s. Since then, things have really turned around, and the level of wealth inequality today is almost double what it was in the mid-1970s.

There is also another measure called the Gini coefficient. It measures the concentration of wealth at different percentile levels, and does an overall computation. It is an index that goes from zero to one, one being the most unequal. Wealth inequality in the United States has a Gini coefficient of .82, which is pretty close to the maximum level of inequality you can have.

For what it's worth, your numbers don't jive... Gini according to Wiki... US is in the .45/.49 range:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gini_ ... t_2009.png

And regarding your first claim, again your numbers are way off... also from Wiki:

In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth and the top 1% owned 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth.[14]
In 2003, the 1% with the highest income paid more than 34% of the nation's federal income tax; the 10% with the highest income paid nearly 66% of the total income tax; the top 25% paid 84% of the income taxes; and the upper 50% accounted for nearly 97% of US income tax revenue.[15] The US has a progressive tax structure which taxes less for smaller incomes. But the US does not directly tax wealth (apart from the estate tax).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth

[richardhutnik]

The Gini coeeficient, if that is what was shown represents wealth, has the United States resembling a third-world nation. It looks bad.

Here is another angle on income (2007):
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesameri ... ealth.html

Bottom 80% owns less than 15% of net wealth. Bottom 90% has less than 2% of financial securities. And other things are involved also here, that are worth noting. The question here is: Is this a good thing? Maybe people feel it is.

- Rich

[newguy]

The Gini coeeficient, if that is what was shown represents wealth, has the United States resembling a third-world nation. It looks bad.

Here is another angle on income (2007):
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesameri ... ealth.html

Bottom 80% owns less than 15% of net wealth. Bottom 90% has less than 2% of financial securities. And other things are involved also here, that are worth noting. The question here is: Is this a good thing? Maybe people feel it is.

- Rich

Russia and Poland have better Gini scores than the US... I'd rather be a production worker in the US than in either of those two countries, or for that matter, anywhere else in the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/business/11views.html

Should Bill Gates share more of his 40 billion with US production workers? Or Will Ferrell share his $20 million per movie with high school drama teachers? Or should Michael Jordan share his $500 million with Randy Brown, who pawned his championship ring? Should the top share more with the bottom, even though the 1% who owns 35% pays 35% of income taxes, then gives nearly half of their worth to govt. at the time of death, and their heirs half of their wealth at the time of their deaths?

Why did Gates throw his wealth toward curing disease in Africa, rather than share with the US worker?

[Mr. Natural]

It’s well known that the rich have an outsized influence on the economy.

The nation’s top 1% of households own more than half the nation’s stocks, according to the Federal Reserve. They also control more than $16 trillion in wealth — more than the bottom 90%.

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2007/01/08/plutonomics/

[richardhutnik]

Considering how much manufacturing has been destroyed in America, you being a "productive worker" has a strong chance of ending manufacturing at a McDonald's.

In regards to productivity, Americans have seen their wages slide this decade. And if you want to see their reward for their increasing the profitability of large companies, go no further than IBM:
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/arti ... t-job-cuts

IBM has record profits and hints at cutting more jobs. So, as for all this wonderfully being productive, it doesn't translate much into people who are productive. And Americans see productivity games by putting in more hours, rather than being more effective at what they do.

As for supposed "charity" by the rich, the reason why they pay so much taxes is because they earn more. This begs the question why they should get more tax cuts, since it apparently hasn't trickled down. This decade has seen anemic job growth, and that was before the crash. Job growth didn't even keep up with needs to match population growth.

Please explain how all this is wonderful for the average person. Anyhow, it isn't a call for handouts, but don't expect people to get shafted by the system to support it.

And, as for the heirs to the rich, what did they do to earn the money? The answer is nothing. They didn't do a blasted thing. What makes them entitled to anything actually, since they didn't earn it? Or do you like the following proposal:
* Pass the income on tax free to heirs, instead of start taxing after millions of dollars that have been passed on.
* Don't tax dividends that people receive.
* Abolish the Alternate Minimum Tax.
* Abolish capital gains.

You support all those? If so, then explain how you don't produce a class of superwealthy who end up being parasites who benefit from a legal system (so they can sue), roads, and a national defense that protects them, fully vote and lobby for their own interests, and not have to pay a cent?

- Rich

[duetta]

Should Bill Gates share more of his 40 billion with US production workers?

Actually...he should, by no longer being allowed to import cheaply paid, inexperienced third-world software engineers and instead being required to choose among experienced (if also more highly paid) native or naturalized American software programmers and engineers. For a guy who actually never finished college, and as head of a company that has been repeatedly cited (by both American and EU authorities) for its anti-competitive behavior, Gates gets away far too often with disparaging the educational background and abilities of experienced American developers. Microsoft is, of course, free to outsource entire centers of production and development to third-world nations in protest, just as Federal and State governments, not to mention concerned American consumers, are free to pull Windows and Office from their computers, and replace it with Linux and open-source software.

Concentration of wealth has become a religion in America - and a completely false one at that. As our recent economic downturn has demonstrated, it takes a village to either make or destroy a market.

[newguy]

Question...

If you had a time machine and/or star trek transporter room -- and thus be able to travel to any place, in the past or present -- to realize a better life... where and when would that place be?

[richardhutnik]

Question...

If you had a time machine and/or star trek transporter room -- and thus be able to travel to any place, in the past or present -- to realize a better life... where and when would that place be?

I might do a meet myself in the past and tell myself NO WAY IN HELL do you go into debt to get a college degree, and borrow for it. The chance of myself landing anything now is not dependent upon my college. Off chance I may be wrong if I end up landing a webmaster/communications assistant position with with a nonprofit within 30 miles of where I am staying now though, if my Masters and IBM experience pays off. Otherwise, my non-profit work doesn't matter.

I say if we were able to do a time rollback to around the year 2001, and prevented that slide we had, things may of been better. My life was better before I got downsized in 2004.

- Rich